Sacred Sins by Nora Roberts (Bantam, 1987)

STATS: There’s a killer strangling slender, pretty blondes with the white silk scarf of a priest and Ben Paris is the magnetic police sergeant assigned to the case. 

THE LOOK: “His profile was in shadows, struck intermittently by streetlights.  It was funny how sometimes he looked safe, solid, the kinds of man a woman might run to if it were dark.  Then the light struck his face another way, and the planes and angles were highlighted.  A woman might run from him.” 

LEADING LADY: Tess Court is a shrink who believes “The Priest” is in pain and seeking help.  She’s immediately drawn to Ben despite his resistance to her theories.  He’s immediately drawn to her, struck by her elegance and the cool wash of her violet eyes. 

There’s a particularly funny scene when Ben is trying to romance Tess and he gets a call from one of his lady friends:

“It didn’t take a trained psychiatrist to understand there was a woman on the other end.  Tess smiled into her drink and went back to the view.

‘No, I’ve been tied up.  Look, sugar—“  The minute the word was out, he winced.  Tess kept her back to him.  “I’m on a case, you know?  No, I didn’t forget about..I didn’t forget.  Listen, I’ll have to get back to you when things lighten up.  I don’t know, weeks, maybe months.  You really ought to try that marine.  Sure.  See ya.’  He hung up, cleared his throat, and reached for his drink again.  ‘Wrong number.’

It was so easy to laugh. She turned, leaned against the windowsill, and gave into it.  ‘Oh, really?’

‘Enjoyed that, didn’t you?’

‘Immensely.’

‘If I’d known you’d get such a kick out of it, I’d have invited her up.’”

J  Love Ben.

BOTTOM LINE: Ben is a tough cop who often butts heads with Tess, but he always makes me think of a gentleman.  Just like his description above, he’s a bit of a riddle—gentlemanly but capable of ripping someone’s head off if he needs to protect the public or the woman he loves.  This is probably Nora in my favorite phase, concentrating on just a couple of characters and drawing out the story so we get to really enjoy it.  

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Ever been in an awkward situation and had to laugh your way out of it?  

 Jack Carter, Chief, Boy Next Door and CharmerSCIFI Channel, returning in July. STATS:  Jack Carter (Colin Ferguson) is sharp and charming, with a quick wit and a street-smart edge. Dedicated first and foremost to his career, but a recent separation from his wife has left him at odds with his teenage daughter, Zoe, whose brushes with the law keep Carter nearly as busy as his day job as a Marshall. In fact, it is one of Zoe’s escapades that forced Carter to drive her home to Los Angeles from Seattle. When their car crashed outside the town of Eureka, it set in motion a sequence of events that resulted in Jack becoming the town’s new sheriff.THE LOOK:  Tall, blue eyed, with sandy blond short hair and quirky smile, that makes his eyes twinkle.LEADING LADY:  Allison Blake, (Salli Richardson) the government liaison between Eureka and the Pentagon. Allison provides Jack Carter with a steady flow of professional and romantic frustrations. Charged with reporting on the progress of Eureka’s citizens as well as their temperamental innovations, Allison grapples with an endless stream of crises and moral dilemmas, as well as Jack’s obvious crush on her.BOTTOM LINE: Poor Jack, sheriff of a town full of geniuses who are temperamental and weird all at once. What I love best about Jack is he’s a normal guy in a town populated by individuals with I.Q’s off the chart. Not that he’s any slouch, but he is normal, which brings a lot of pity to him from the local residence.  They fell sorry for him, because he is normal, and often make comments about what it must be like for him to be him. Than there is Allison, his love interest, who Jack has a HUGE crush on. The affection isn’t returned, in fact her ex-husband, Nathan Stark, (Ed Quinn) who is still very much in the picture, proves to be a constant aggravation.  Jack in so many ways is like the boy next door, who is both innocent, and yet streetwise. Honorable to a fault, Jack is in constant struggle to provide a ‘normal’ home life for his daughter, in a not-so-normal town. His morals are strong, keeping him steady on a road that often throws a punch of very unexplainable stuff in his path. But yet his strength is his charming naivety in the face of adversity.Question of the Day:   I have always loved the innocent naive, but yet, strong hero. Do you find the boy next door type sexy or not?  If so, why?

Lover Eternal by JR Ward (Signet Eclipse, 2006)

STATS:           Black Dagger brother with “the strongest appetites.  He’s the best fighter, the quickest to act on his impulses, and the most voracious lover—for inside him burns a ferocious curse cast by the Scribe Virgin.  Owned by this dark side, Rhage fears the times when his inner dragon is unleashed, making him a danger to everyone around him.”  All I can say is – Wow. 

THE LOOK:   A face so dazzling you have to blink to make sure you aren’t dreaming.  “Perfectly square jaw.  Full lips.  High cheekbones.  Broad forehead.  Hair was thick and wavy, lighter in the front, darker in the back where it was cut short.  And his body was just as spectacular as his head.  Big-boned.  Thickly muscled.  No fat.  His skin was golden even under the florescent lights….His eyes were an electric teal blue, so bright, so vivid, they were almost neon.” 

LEADING LADY:     Mary is “survivor of many hardships.”  When she meets Rhage, she’s just learned that the cancer she’s defeated once has returned.  She thinks she has nothing to offer any man, but Rhage knows that’s not true the instant she speaks his name—the musical lilt to his voice calms and comforts the demon inside him, drawing him to her immediately. 

BOTTOM LINE:       Rhage is like an Extreme Fighter with a soft heart and an endearing and genuine desire to protect those he cares for most, even from himself.  He can get his feelings hurt by careless words and inadvertent rejection.  However, he’ll kill anything that threatens those he loves.  And when he’s inspired, he’s one of the most passionate heroes I’ve read about.  Even when he has to drink blood from another woman because he can’t drink from Mary, he isn’t able to until Mary herself comes to terms with it.  Ward is able to craft Rhage so skillfully that the reader can even forgive the fact he sleeps with another woman after he’s fallen in love with Mary (and she knows it) because it really isn’t something he wanted to do.  Again, all I can say is – Wow!    

QUESTION OF THE DAY:  Have you ever surprised yourself by your ability to forgive and what gave you the motivation to do so? 

 /  Just an aside before you read today’s profile (Virna’s skipping her column this week)… I’m soon to live in the south [Texas, though, not Georgia] and I’m here now house-hunting, totally stressed as we work out contract details, missing my kids, and reading Gone With the Wind for book club.  Please forgive yet another reference to my favorite book, but how could I not write about a Southern hero?  And one that I love so much! And now, with no further adieu… 

Gone With the Wind (Margaret Mitchell, Scribner, 1936)  Rhett Butler: Bad Boy/Charmer/Swashbuckler Rhett Butler might well be one of the original bad boys/charmers/swashbucklers of the south.  He’s the quintessential scoundrel–a blockader during the Civil War and a man who is not received in Atlanta or in Charleston.  Despite his bad reputation [in a time when reputation is everything], he’s full of charisma and heavy on charm.   In Rhett’s own words, however, he describes himself thusly: “…I’m a damned rascal and no gentleman…”    No wonder he’s so loved by women everywhere!  

STATS:   35 years old to Scarlett’s 18 [remember, these were the days of the Civil War] and over 6 feet tall.  Black hair, black eyes, a slightly black soul, and connected with “something pleasantly scandalous” but lovable nonetheless.  

THE LOOK: “He was a tall man and powerfully built.  Scarlett thought she had never seen a man with such wide shoulders, so heavy with muscles, almost too heavy for gentility.  When her eye caught his, he smiled, showing animal-white teeth below a close-clipped black mustache.  He was dark of face, swarthy as a pirate, and his eyes were as bold and black as any pirate’s appraising a galleon to be scuttled or a maiden to be ravished.  There was a cool recklessness in his face and a cynical humor in his mouth as he smiled at her, and Scarlett caught her breath.   She felt that she should be insulted by such a look and was annoyed with herself because she did not feel insulted.  She did not know who he could be, but there was undeniably a look of good blood in his dark face.  It showed in the thin hawk nose over the full red lips, the high forehead  and the wide-set eyes.” “There was mockery in everything he said.  [Scarlett] disliked him heartily, lounging there against the booth.  But there was something stimulating about him, something warm and vital and electric.”   

LEADING LADY: “All that was Irish in her rose to the challenge of his black eyes.  She decided she was going to take this man down a notch or two.  His knowledge of her secret gave him an advantage over her that was exasperating, so she would have to change that by putting him at a disadvantage somehow.  She stifled her impulse to tell him exactly what she thought of him.  Sugar always caught more flies than vinegar, as Mammy often said, and she was going to catch and subdue this fly, so he could never again have her at his mercy.” Rhett’s thoughts on Scarlett:  “On the occasion of our first eventful meeting I thought to myself that I had at last met a girl who was not only beautiful but who had courage…When I first met you, I thought: There is a girl in a million.  She isn’t like these other silly fools who believe everything their mammas tell them and act on it, no matter how they feel.  And conceal all their feelings and desires and little heartbreaks behind a lot of sweet words.  I thought: Miss O’Hara is a girl of rare spirit.  She knows what she wants and she doesn’t mind speaking her mind–or throwing vases.” At one point in Gone With the Wind, Rhett, who says more than once that he’s not the marrying kind, proposes that Scarlett become his mistress.  Ever the pragmatic, Scarlett’s response is that she’ll get nothing out of that arrangement other than a passel of brats.  So much for propriety and a ladylike upbringing.   But then Rhett likes Scarlett’s lack of propriety and unladylike behavior. He says that he never does anything with a specific purpose and he never gives anything without expecting something in return.  He “always gets paid”.  He tells her that her beaux have treated her with far too much respect and that she needs kissing by someone who knows how to kiss.  Ahhh… The question is, has he met his match in Scarlett O’Hara? 

BOTTOM LINE: Rhett Bulter is like Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.  He’s an original and he’s larger than life.  He comes from a different time and just as Ashley Wilkes, Rhett’s gentlemanly counterpart, represents all that is refined and idealistic in the Civil War south, so Rhett Butler represents all that is scandalous and daring and pushes us to think about the southerners who knew that “our Southern way of living is as antiquated as the feudal system of the Middle Ages.”  He refuses to “fight to uphold the system that cast [him] out.”   Just like Scarlett, Rhett isn’t afraid to say exactly what he thinks and feels, even if it goes against the conventional wisdom or the beliefs of the time.  He’s one of my all-time favorite heroes and he always will be.  

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Create your own analogy along the lines of “Rhett Butler being just like Mr. Darcy”.  Who are two larger than life heroes to you, either from past literature or from contemporary fiction? AND/OR Who is your all-time favorite hero from the past?